The municipalities also have to prepare: the canton of Zurich is conducting exercises with them in connection with power failures.
In the event of a longer power outage, households should be able to supply themselves from their own pantry for up to a week.
The Zurich government council does not rule out that there will be a power shortage next winter. He writes this in a answer to a request from the cantonal parliament, which was published on Thursday. Accordingly, a power shortage lasting weeks or even months is “one of the most likely crisis scenarios in the near future”.
In this situation, the supply of the population with food would no longer be guaranteed. In order to bridge a blackout that could last “short to a few days”, the government is calling on the residents of the canton to create an emergency supply. This should be enough for about a week. The canton has already carried out a campaign on social networks on the subject of emergency supplies. There is also one site with more information.
According to the canton, the emergency supply includes water and drinks, food, consumer goods, hygiene items and a medicine cabinet. In its response, the cantonal government goes into more detail specifically about drinking water. Accordingly, the citizens themselves are responsible for having enough water available for the first three days. The recommended amount is three liters per person per day.
However, mineral springs and beverage producers could also step in. They have undertaken to keep the minimum amount of drinking water in stock for the first three days in order to supply the population, the Zurich government continues.
In an emergency, food would be rationed
If the power shortage lasts longer and the economy cannot adequately guarantee the supply of essential goods, further measures would be enacted. Among other things, compulsory stocks of the federal government would then be released. These ensured the supply of food, medicine and fuel for several months. The federal government can also ration food and fuel, the Zurich government has stated.
The government council also comments on the electricity supply in the canton. According to this, only just under a fifth of Zurich’s electricity requirements can be covered from cantonal sources. A potential of almost 60 percent is theoretically possible, especially with photovoltaic systems. However, this is only a target value, for the year 2050.
The government’s communication also reveals that the cantonal authorities are conducting and have conducted drills related to power outages with municipalities. In the event of a power shortage, the municipalities themselves are responsible for maintaining their central services.
Power shortage every 30 to 50 years
Appeals by the authorities to procure emergency supplies are not new in principle. As early as the Cold War, people were encouraged to take care of themselves in the first days of a crisis; older generations may still remember the mnemonic “Kluger Rat, Notvorrat”. With the corona pandemic and now with a possible power shortage, the idea, which had seemed a bit dusty for a long time, has received new impetus.
Coping with a power shortage has also not only been an issue since the war in Ukraine. The federal government, cantons and suppliers have been counting on this for years. In the federal government’s most recent risk report (2020), a long-lasting power shortage even before a pandemic and a failure of the mobile network was even described as the greatest risk.
In its scenarios, the federal government calculates that there will be a severe electricity shortage every 30 to 50 years. In 2014, there was already a major national exercise involving several thousand participants, including three Federal Councilors. In the canton of Zurich, the cities of Zurich and Winterthur were involved at the time.